The Rules of Robotics and Love
by HunterWizard
Summary: The Voltron Robotics AU where Voltron is built as the fatalistic Zarkon's challenger by a bunch of dreaming teens in high school, and Pidge and Lance navigate the waters of (real) first romance.
1. Chapter 1

_Pidge closes her eyes, the round glasses that perennially perch on her nose closed and grasped in her fist. And her brain begins to stir._

 _Fog._

 _Colours._

 _The shadow of someone holding her hand._

 _She has Voltron, standing before her, fully formed and ready. The lions are tall, proud, as brightly coloured as their names. Controllers, screams, people._

 _She sees the Galra Robotics Club dismantled and taken apart, the ruins of their mini-Zarkon on the ground at her feet, irreversible damage. Probably done by her._

 _She sees five, no, six people before her._

 _Shiro, looking as regal and leader-like as ever, ever the dad friend,_

 _Hunk, his best smile on his face, arms outstretched and beckoning,_

 _Keith, wearing that stupid cropped jacket and hint of a smile on his stupid face,_

 _Coran, mustache perfect as usual, smiling and holding a cup of coffee,_

 _Allura, gorgeous, eyes showing off the intelligence that many didn't see on the surface,_

 _and..._

 _Lance._

 _Pidge quickly opens her eyes, letting the world back in, slipping on her glasses and running off into the distance._

The cafe that Voltron Robotics currently occupies would be very nice and peaceful, bolstered by the chirps of birds in early morning, cool winds and smell of fresh coffee brewed by Allura and Coran, but-

"You told your mum what?!" Shiro screams, completely and utterly surprised.

"Since when did Pidge have a boyfriend?!" Lance and Hunk exclaim in perfect unison.

"I don't!" Pidge butts in, silencing a eager Shiro. "My mum just assumes I do, considering most of the people I hang out with are male. To her, that means like fifty potential suitors."

Pidge collapses in her chair, her tiny body perfectly occupying the area. Apparently, hanging out with the opposite gender meant sexual attraction. Assuming meant making an 'ass out of you and me', so Pidge never felt more frustrated when her mother would think a friend was her boyfriend. At least she wasn't normally 'traditionally feminine' enough to be mistaken for one of the boys' girlfriends by anyone else. Not that being feminine was a bad thing.

"Does she even know you were pretending to be a boy to join our club?" Hunk questions. The five attend Altea High together, Shiro being the oldest and Pidge the (prodigious) youngest. But there was a rather stagnant robotics club, handed down by traitorous member Zarkon. It seemed like it was going to only be Shiro, Keith, Lance and Hunk, but it turned out that Katie Holt, now Pidge Gunderson, wanted to join without anyone else knowing who she was outside of the club.

"Nope." Pidge, satisfied, reclines in her chair. "Hey, c'mon, I'm more clever than you think."

The four raise their eyebrows at Pidge.

"Since when have we ever even underestimated you, smol bean?" Lance jokes, fluffing her already fluffy hair. Pidge smacks his hand away, shooting him a glare.

"There's an obvious underestimation."

"Stop it, Lance. Pidge, why the hell did you let your mom think you're dating someone?" Keith interrupts, shooting Lance a equally strong glare. Lance makes a face back.

"Do you think I wanted to bring home a boyfriend?" Pidge Gunderson complains, pushing up her large round glasses with one hand. "As if I'd even want to date. I'm perfectly happy with just my computer and cryptids, thank you very much."

Keith gives her a high-five.

"I'm just going to tell my mum that I'm never going to have a boyfriend. Then dad won't expect someone to play catch with and I'll be left alone."

"Pidge, dear," Allura sets down Pidge's favourite peanut butter and chocolate muffin, special of Castle Cafe. "I pity the boys that will never get a chance to date you."

What boys, Pidge thinks. If she were like Allura, with her silky white hair, perfect curvy figure, and a face that shone brighter than the sun itself, yeah, there would probably be boys throwing themselves at her. Look at Lance, and more secretively, Shiro. But she was Pidge. She wasn't in search of attention for looks. She wanted recognition for the robotics she knew she could do. And that's the only reason she was in Voltron. Yep.

"Yeah, who would pass up this cutie~" Lance fluffs Pidge's hair again, much to her annoyance, but she can't stop that little pink tint that colours her small cheeks. Allura smiles, throwing a wink at Shiro, handing out the rest of the food and leaving.

Pidge looks at Shiro's napkin and almost laughs.

"Well, no more talk about faux dating. We need to think of the robotics contest!" Pidge quickly changes the subject, much to Lance's amusement.

"C'mon, Pidgeotto, it's a Saturday. Let's go to a beach or something, not work!"

Lance's suggestion irks Pidge for a moment, because all he wanted to do was probably ogle tall, voluptuous girls in bikinis rather than actually hang with the Voltron gang. But sure.

"I'll pack the picnic!"

The beach is as warm and sunny as Pidge expected with June rapidly approaching. The minute they reach, Pidge sees so many of Lance's would-be targets. Lance had even put on his lucky swin trunks, blue with little duckies on them. Pidge had changed into a swimsuit, the only purpose to not ruin her clothes.

"You changed into an actual, real, made-for-purpose swimsuit?" Hunk notices. "You never do that."

"Well," Pidge replies, "I think it's a little smarter than sacrificing perfectly good clothes."

Shiro looks like he's about to burn, his pale skin starting to redden rapidly with barely five minutes of sun exposure. Now that Pidge looked properly, Keith looked like he was going to be set on fire, tongue out and panting.

Pidge carries her laptop and headphones in a canvas bag, also having a beach blanket and small umbrella. She'd changed intYes, she had grown used to random beach excursions and therefore kept a beach bag nearby, no, she did not like the beach. She only went along for the friends. At least today there was some decent winds that somewhat combated the UV rays just tearing away at her patience.

Why would anyone want to bake in hot sun, get sand everywhere, get perfectly good electronics wet from the sea? Nah, you could probably tell Pidge preferred the sanctity of her room at home, geeking it out with her family.

Hunk hands her a large jar of peanut butter, other hand offering a large spoon and a big smile on his face.

"Hunk, you are my freaking saviour."

Pidge digs out a huge scoop and sticks it in her mouth. Hunk sits down next to her on her green rug.

They stare at Lance, eagerly running from woman to woman, throwing numerous pick-up lines and sleazy smiles their way.

"Does he know how stupid he looks when he does that?" Pidge asks Hunk, who looks like he's about to throw up his hearty lunch.

"Either he doesn't know, or he seriously doesn't care."

If anything, Lance probably thinks his 'stupid' behaviour was attractive, and it most certainly was not. At Altea High, Hunk, Pidge (over there referred to as 'Katie') and Lance were in the same grade, while Keith and Shiro were in the grade above. So yeah, Pidge wasn't sure whether Lance was really a friend. She preferred to stay distant from most of her classmates, Lance and Hunk occasionally being the exceptions. Voltron made them grow a bit closer, she'd admit.

"Girl, you've already activated my-"

Pidge spits out her peanut butter.

"LANCE!"

Shiro tugs Lance by the ear, apologising profusely to the poor Nyma that walks away, confused.

"Did you see the face on that one?!" Pidge cracks up, laughing so hard that she doubles back onto Hunk, equally riled up.

"Hmph." A disgruntled Lance sniffs at the sight, rather miffed. "She was so all over me, until SHIRO DECIDED TO BREAK US APART."

"You know she's been with Rolo for a year right?" Keith points out, gesturing to a muscly guy that had an arm wrapped around Nyma.

"STILL-"

"Face it Lance, there isn't a girl out there who's actually susceptible to your charms."

Lance's eyes glint, and suddenly Pidge felt like she'd gotten herself in a big pile of Kaltenecker poop.

"Well, Pidge, Pidgey, Pidgeon, Pidgeotto-"

"Pokemon Go is over, face it , McClain." Pidge cuts in. Shiro sits by, eyes glinting too. Keith too. Hunk too. Wait, what the hell was going on?!

"Since you seem so adamant to the fact that I will never have a girlfriend-"

Pidge looks up at the substantially taller Lance, eyes focusing on his and not wanting to go any lower down for her own self-respect.

"At least you admit it's a fact that you will never have a girlfriend," she smirks. Keith high-fives her again.

"Hey!" Lance exclaims, pouting. Hunk laughs loud, giving a Lance a big bear hug.

"Aww, did someone hurt your non-existent heart, Lance?" Pidge jokes. Lance pretends to be shot, falling on the sand.

"You've wounded me so, fair maiden, now help me out!" Lance's arms flop uselessly to his sides. Pidge jabs him with her elbow, hard, smirk plastered on her face, making him jolt skyward with eyes blown wide.

"Pidge!"

Lance never did end up finishing that sentence, whatever it was supposed to be, even on the car drive back in Shiro's minivan("You're such a dad, Shiro!"). But Pidge could definitely feel something had changed. She wasn't really sure what, but Lance seemed to be behaving slightly...differently.

As per usual, Pidge sat on someone's lap (or even sometimes, lay down on multiple ones) because of the cramped nature of the car's backseat. ("It's a freakin minivan, Shiro, can't you be a good suburban mom and choose one with actual space!") And of course, as the smallest person, she'd been chosen to stick it out in random places in the car.

Some days she would be on Hunk, probably her best friend after Matt. But most days she would sitting on Lance, because she knew he would think nothing of it. And the height difference made it less uncomfortable slash awkward. Today, she sat on Lance. (Inconveniently,

Normally all would be fine. In the van, they would chat, discuss the next robot project, make jokes about each other ("Look, Keith's back in the 1980's with that hairstyle") and everything was so casual with each other. No problem at all.

But now, Lance just looked different, and it frustrated the analytical Pidge. He looked like he was...actually thinking for once. Like there was something actually going around inside his head. Weird.

"What's up with you, Lance?" Pidge whispers, her voice indistinguishable behind the banter going on with Shiro, Keith and Hunk. Something about Hunk's new girlfriend, that also happened to be Shiro and Keith's classmate in the higher grade.

"Ooohh, Hunk's dating an older woman!"

"No-nothing's up with me, Pidge. Nothing."

Lance's eyes shift and flit everywhere, so fast that Pidge can't really comprehend where they're going. From up, down, but Pidge wonders why. After all, she's blocking most of his line of sight, so where are his eyes even going? Her head rests next to his, as she adjusts herself to be more comfortable.

"You sure?"

"What makes you so worried, Pidgeon? You don't usually ask."

Lance smiles, actually, smirks. Pidge returns the smirk, the two breaking out into laughter.

"I think it's just nothing then." Lance lets out a breath that he didn't know he was holding, Pidge feeling it through her slender back. He seems nervous, tense, something.

Pidge doesn't know what it is.

"We've got some news."

Shiro stands at the front of their small borrowed workshop, bulky arms folded and eyes stern. Pidge isn't really listening, preferring to fiddle with the little robot she'd finishied after spending some time on the design. Rover, she finally decided to call it. Rover. Lance had said the name was cute, just like her.

Why was it suddenly so uncomfortably hot in here?

"Zarkon has decided to join the Galra Robotics Club as their new president."

Well, shit.

"They're planning to join the Inter-School National Robotics Tournament. Just like we were."

Well, good to know that one of the most brilliant, charming and intimidating students was electing to join a college where everything was invested into their robotics and the like. Zarkon was someone that from their, lowly, five people club perspective, seemed invincible.

"Can't we just kick their asses at the next competition?" Lance drawls, confidence dripping from his words, sitting back in his chair, feet propped up. "I mean..." He gets up, dramatically shoving the chair behind him.

"First up, we have Takashi Shirogane, our unspoken but obvious leader with much experience in unarmed bot fighting and piloting." Lance's lanky arms shoot out to point out at Shiro, who uncomfortably rubs the back of his neck.

"Second, we have dreamboat Hunky Garret, a wonder with engineering and cooking the best beef tacos you'll ever find."

Hunk grins, returning Lance's fist bump as he flits over to Keith.

"Here, we have My Chemical Keith Kogane. I don't know what we use him for, he's pretty useless now that I think about it-"

Keith coughs, shooting Lance a glare.

"Do you mean our robot weapons expert, management and controlling expert?" Hunk asks. Lance shoots him a look.

"Thank you, Hunk. And he is absolutely right." Keith responds, grinning with snark at a ticked-off Lance McClain.

"Over here, a little downwards-"

"Hey!"

"-we have Pidge Gunderson, AKA Katie Holt, AKA multitalented robotics student. Like, how does anyone engineer, control, program, and study all in one! Especially the studying part!" Pidge has to fight the urge to slam her face into the table, messing up her auburn ponytail. Instead, she settles for gently placing her face on the table, hiding the blush that tints her cheeks pink.

Wait, what?!

"And of course, I've saved the best for laaaast!" Lance cheers, dragging out syllables. "Introducing Lance McClain, expert controller and logician for all kinds of robot competitions!"

And in comes the jazz hands, the dramatic karate kicks, the large grins and smirks free of charge from Lance himself.

"Since when have you even had a little drop of logic?" Keith questions, stood in the corner. He looks unamused, bored, and done with Lance's shit. "Like, you say we should just kick the asses of one the best funded, supported, and famously powerful robotics clubs in the nation? Such logic," Keith scoffs at Lance, who starts screeching back at Keith indignantly.

"Well, excuse me for wanting to put some positivity back into this team, ," Lance fires back. "At least I'm trying to bring our spirits up into the new plans rather than dragging them down like a certain someone-"

"Stop it, Lance." Pidge scolds, punching him lightly on the arm.

"But he started it!-"

"Pidge's right, we've got to focus on creating the robot for the next championship." Shiro steps in, shooting both Lance and Keith a look.

"Sorry," they both mumble. Pidge punches him harder.

"Oww! What do you do, karate?" Lance groans.

"Wanna test that theory?!" Lance's eyes shoot downwards, seeing that Pidge's knee was aimed uncomfortably close to his dick, eyes glinting.

"Okay, now, Pidge, cool it-"

Lance's face flushes red.

"Okay, okay, that's enough banter for now," Shiro tuts, successfully pulling Pidge up and off the floor by her jacket, plopping her down right next to him.

A moment of silence.

Pidge looks up at Shiro, and in that moment, Shiro knew he was completely and utterly fucked.

"SHIIRRROOOO!"

"Pidge is so light that Shiro can legit just pick her up with one hand-oh my lord!" Hunk actually screams, falling on the floor as they watch Pidge actually climb on Shiro and hang on his shoulders. And even better, even while hanging, Pidge's toes still wouldn't touch the floor.

"Holy shit-"

"Shut up."

"HOLY SHIT!"

"I swear to god, Lance-"

Yeah, they didn't get anything done that day.


	2. Chapter 2

"I'm gonna drop Physics, I swear to god." Lance yawns lazily as the trio walk out of the science lab, books under arms and sleep weighing down already heavy eyelids.

"You drop Physics, and Shiro will drop you out of Voltron," Pidge yawns, equally as tired. Pidge honestly was still really pissed that mom still made her go to this stupid boarding high school, that she still had to attend school at all. So what if she'd won a scholarship, just let her drop out and live life the way she wanted to.

She didn't want to spend years in a classroom, next to kids drooling on their uniforms and doodling dicks on the expensive desks. She didn't want to waste her time trying to squint at a Science textbook and learn stuff that she already, for the most part, knew. The schooling system was shit anyway. Stare at a textbook, get full marks. That was the marker of intelligence to the general school population.

"Like I'm going to let that keep me from preserving my patience and life," Lance responds. "Sure, I like robotics, but do I _like like_ robotics? Do I like like robotics as much as I like like Allura?"

"You don't like like Allura, you have the hots for her because she's pretty and gorgeous," Pidge points out.

"Did I miss a space travel mission back in time to middle school? Cuz' that's where we seem to be," Hunk says, rolling his eyes. Hunk looks curiously between the two.

"She's soooo much more than that under the surface-!"

"You haven't even held a conversation with her that didn't involve a shitty pickup line that she immediately rebuffs," Pidge points out. "Plus, she's probably got the hots for Shiro like every other person around him-"

"What, you like Shiro now?" Lance grins right up in Pidge's face. She flushes red, and a little alarm in Lance's head is set off.

"Oh wow, you actually do!"

Pidge makes a face of disgust, miming vomiting.

The corridor suddenly fills with people, the rest of the classes released. The bell rings, students running to the classrooms to reach there on time. The trio gave up on being on time a long time ago.

"Nah, no muscly seniors for me, please." Pidge salutes Lance and Hunk as casually as she could, the embarrassment from earlier completely gone, heading off to Computer Science while a bemused Lance waves goodbye.

"No muscly seniors? Doesn't every girl like muscly seniors?" Lance says to Hunk as he squints into the microscope, one handing holding and the other scribbling. Hunk shrugs passively, eyes flitting around to make sure Iverson wasn't coming in for surprise inspections. God, Iverson was probably the worst thing about Altea, especially to their year (probably because of Lance, but he'd never admit it).

"It's Pidge," is all that Hunk answers, cutting up plant segments. "Need I say anything more?"

"Yeah, sure..." Lance answers. So if the typical buff guy wasn't her type, what was? The opposite of buff, sweet as honey and good with the ladies? What the hell?

Lance shakes his head, snapping himself out of it. He focuses on the aloe sample in front of him, the structures fascinating him. It reminded him a little bit of the shape of coral or the scales of fish. It reminded of him of the sea, what he'd find on the sandy beach, and that was where he wanted to be rather than this stuffy lab. That being said, Biology was one of the better classes.

"Why do you keep bringing up Pidge's statement like every," Hunk pauses, checking his watch for the time, "every five minutes on average?"

"Only you-and maybe Pidge-would actually count averages on sayings," Lance groans. He doodles the pattern of the aloe with his pencil, turning out a delightful pencil sketch.

"And you bring up Pidge more than usual nowadays," Hunk points out. He takes the paper from Lance, noting the little scribbles that looked suspiciously like round, framed glasses.

"Yeah, she's my friend. Your point?" Lance snatches the paper back, scowling.

"Well-"

"Mr. McClain and Garret? All good?" Their Bio teacher gives them a glare, ignoring the snickers of the students around them.

"Yes, ma'am." Their voices chorus in unison. She sits back down, focus going back to her novella.

"Wait, what was I saying again?" Hunk shakes his head, trying to recall from his memory. A little voice in Lance's head says 'phew'.

"What were you saying? Hmm, I don't really know." If it were someone else saying that, maybe Shiro or Keith, Hunk would have believed it. The cheeky grin that was starting to grow on Lance's face immediately alerted Hunk.

"Lies, Lance. Total lies."

The bell rings, and the scratching of wooden stools on floor tiles sounds, a chorus of "Thank you, Miss," and Lance and Hunk speed out of the classroom with everything they have.

Lance spots Pidge in the corridor.

"Hey, Pidgeon!"

"LANCE MCCLAIN, FOR GOD'S SAKE."

"Ohmigod, Pidge, stop swearing-"

"FUC-"

"Pidgeon!"

Shiro lays out plans, blueprints, drawings that he and Lance spent the weekend drawing. Pidge admires the clean lines, elements of the robot design, all obviously hand-drawn by Lance. So yeah, it was Shiro's ideas and intellect, and Hunk's design ideas, but it was only made visible by Lance.

Since when did Lance actually try hard for Voltron? This blueprint looked like it had a lot of work put in.

"So, this looks like our first draft idea for what we are going to name Voltron," Shiro starts off, prosthetic fingers absentmindedly tracing the lines of the design in front of him.

Pidge's always admired Shiro for how he was able to bounce back from an accident that mercilessly stole his arm from him and still continue his passion for robotics. Amazing. Lance's voice floats in her head, annoying her about her blush, and she quickly knocks Lance's voice in the balls.

"Yeah, drawn by the amazing Lance right here!" Lance proudly points his finger towards his chest, puffed out. Keith rolls his eyes.

"Mmhmm," Keith mumbles.

"What's that? The sound of complete jealousy over my art skills?" Lance cups his hand around his ear, leaning towards Keith, arms folded. "Yeah, yeah, I think it is!"

Keith scowls.

"Continuing on," Shiro shoots Lance a glare, "we need to review what's going on during the competition."

"Ugh, can we do that later?" Lance groans. "Let's just focus on my amazing drawing first, can we?"

"We can get started when Lance decides to shut up," Pidge raises an eyebrow.

"Eh-uh-hey!" Lance stutters. Then, he reclines, folding his arms like Keith.

"Okay-" Pidge pushes her glasses up as they had slipping down her nose, eyes glinting slightly.

"Ermagherd, Pidge's doing the anime glasses thing," Lance says. Pidge jolts her head to pout at Lance, who smiles widely at the sight.

"So, first we navigate the robot through a series of obstacles, starting on land, going through water-"

Lance smirks, almost opening his big mouth to brag about his amazing skill with manoeuvring robots through water. Pidge slaps her hand on his mouth, going on with verve.

"-and finishing on land."

"Okay, go on," Shiro urges.

"The second challenge is autonomous; the robot must be able to help people in need and do what they ask. Basically, this challenge is me downing red bull and programming all night."

Pidge shrugs. No biggie, right? Lance raises an eyebrow.

"The third is probably the best," Pidge smirks, pushing her glasses up again.

"PIDGE IS DOING THE-"

"Knockout round bot fighting."

"HELL YEAH!" Lance screams. Keith looks up, significantly more interested than earlier. Shiro tries to hide it, but a big smile starts shyly creeping up on his face.

"If I'm being honest, that's probably where the Galra will beat us to the ground. They play dirty, but they can never prove it, and that makes it impossible to win." Pidge pauses, totally not for dramatic effect. "Not impossible if we make a robot so freaking awesome that we dominate all three categories and smash Zarkon into the ground!"

Keith high-fives her.

"Hear hear for Pidgey Gunderson!" Lance whoops loudly, grinning like an idiot. Pidge would climb on him and MMA-style tackle him to the ground (yes, she totally could, despite the height difference), but today something was stopping her. Worse, she wasn't sure what was.

She stares at him, eyes slowly widening as he smiles and laughs, cheering her name. Something about it makes her smile small, not in the cheeky way she so often does, but something more...soft.

"Pidge? You alright?" Hunk asks. She blinks, nodding her head in short and quick nods.

"Ye-yeah, I'm all good."

"So anyway," Shiro glances sideways at Pidge, expression nearly unreadable, "we need to start improving on our current idea."

Pidge peers closer to the blueprint, adjusting her glasses ever so slightly. The table is really small, as is the blueprint ("Dammit, Lance, draw bigger next time."), so Lance leans over Pidge with ease.

"Do you really have to do that?" Pidge whisper-shouts, turning her head to look at Lance. Much to her surprise, his face is a lot lower and closer to her than she realised, so she quickly whips her gaze back to the (admittedly) intricate drawing.

"Yes, yes I do."

Lance says it too quietly for Pidge to hear.

It's a lucky thing that Pidge can't see his expression as he leans over her, the commanding voice of Shiro just something in the background.

 _A shadow..._

 _A smile._

 _They turn, facing_ _Pidge_ _..._

 _Why is Lance there?_

 _Pidge_ _looks up, her eyes meeting his._

 _But-_

Pidge jolts up, breathing heavily, stunned. Startled by the dream, she quickly switches on the lights and slips her glasses back on. There. Clarity.

"What the hell..."

What were with these dreams?

Pidge, unnerved, looks at the clock. Oh. Only 4 am. She turns on her laptop, scrolling through her contact list on Skype to see who was still up. Talking to someone always helped Pidge after something disturbing.

Hmm...only one person?

A few clicks later, and Pidge finds herself looking at Lance McClain on her screen. Funny, considering he wasn't very far away.

"What's up, Pidgeon?"

"Seriously, Lance, why do you like warping my name like that?" Pidge sighs, mockingly flipping back to show him how completely _done_ she was with him.

"Fine, I'll stop, _Katie."_ Lance rolls his eyes, the two breaking out into laughter quickly after.

"Why did you call me so late?"

"Why are you even up so late?" Pidge asks. Lance looks tired too, like he'd also only suddenly woken up. From what she could infer, his nightlight was on, but not the room's light. Hunk seemed to be snoring on the top bunk.

Pidge wondered briefly what it would be like to have a roommate. Hers had secretly moved into another dorm after declaring Pidge to be 'bitchy, too tomboyish and weird." Well, it had worked out both ways. Pidge got double the amount of space and had turned the top bunk into a tech-galore.

Lance yawns, messing up his already tousled and messed up hair.

Damn, Pidge seriously wanted to fix if flat again.

"Combating a question with a question, I see." Lance tilts his head to the side, corner of his mouth twitching up. Pidge grabs a pillow, stuffing her face in it.

"Combating my question with a statement, I see," Pidge replies.

"Yanno, despite you being able to hide yourself as a boy in the Voltron ranks, you've got a really shitty poker face, Pidge."

Pidge scowl, lips perking out in a pout. Lance raises his eyebrows.

"Like you're any better. You've always sucked at Texas Hold 'Em," Pidge retaliates, allowing the pillow to slip down and reveal her grin. Lance makes a sound of frustration.

"That's because I trusted Texan boy Keith to be my teacher. He's messed me up permanently," Lance weakly defends, scowling.

Lance frowns, suddenly stopping.

"Goddamn, you got me there for a moment."

"True."

"Seriously, Katie, what's wrong?"

Pidge pauses, liking hearing the name 'Katie' roll off Lance's tongue. It'd been a while since she'd heard it, after all.

"I just had a strange dream. Just a little messed up. But I just called cuz I wanted someone to talk to," Pidge explains. She prays that Lance doesn't ask about the dream, because yeah, she is a shit liar in front of him.

"Want me to sneak over? I've got peanut butter cookies," Lance holds up a paper bag, taking one out and teasingly biting into it. Pidge eyes the cookie, shutting her eyes tight and shaking her head.

As tempting as that sounded, Pidge had to decline. Having Lance around after that dream would feel strange. Having Lance in her room wasn't out of the norm, it was just...today.

"Do you really think you should be sneaking out again? I hear Iverson's putting more guards on duty nowadays," Pidge questions. Lance rolls his eyes, stuffing another cookie in his mouth.

"If you don't want me to come over, you can just say so," Lance scowls. Now it's Pidge's turn to roll her eyes. Lance looks a little...disappointed, somehow. Probably not, Pidge thinks.

"Nah. It's just that I'm probably going to sleep soon, and I wouldn't want you around while I'm sleeping."

Wow, Pidge's excuse giving skills were skyrocketing through the roof. Lance shrugs.

"Okay then." Lance looks at her suspiciously. "But if you hear a noise a night..."

"Oh my god, Lance!" Pidge laughs, and Lance is dumbstruck for a moment. Laughing at a joke he made? Since when?

It's...kinda cute.

Both Pidge and Lance become so absorbed that they're not sure what time it is when they say goodbye, shut off the computer, turn off the nightlight.

"Well hello there, Allura," Lance grins, probably trying to give her his best smile. Allura, holding a coffee pot, already begins to grimace. "I seem to have lost my number. Could I have yours?"

Allura smiles, not skipping a beat when she replies. "Sorry, Lance, but my phone's out of service."

Pidge high-fives her, the two grinning wickedly as a dejected and disgruntled. Lance pouts and goes back to sipping his latte.

Something about that sight makes Pidge burn a little inside, a little crease form between her eyebrows. Yeah, it's probably that she doesn't want to see her friend sad. To cheer him up, Pidge employs her best technique; she kicks Lance's leg from under the table, and he spits out his latte, eyes blown wide. He turns to glare at her.

"What was that for?!"

"You've got to stop doing that to Allura. She's had to put up with your pickup lines for how long now? Give the poor gal a break."

Pidge doesn't even want to bother calculating the amount of lunch breaks they've had since semester started, considering that's probably the same amount of times Lance hit on Allura.

God, that was a lot!

Thank goodness she didn't have to put up with flirtatious fools like Lance. Pidge's combination of an unruly and messy ponytail, baggy tomboyish clothes and sharp tongue successfully wards away fools and idiots.

"Geez, okay," Lance puts his hands up in self distance, small smirk on his face. "What, would you prefer I flirt with you?"

Pidge flares red, burning her cheeks. She jolts her head to the side, not wanting to let Lance have the satisfaction of her embarrassment.

"Did it hurt?"

Pidge groans, not answering. She looks up, arms folded, to see an expectant looking Lance.

"Did what hurt?"

Can't hurt to go along with it.

Lance smiles triumphantly.

"Did it hurt when you fell from heaven? 'Cause you're an angel to me."

Pidge reddens, even more strongly than before, but she returns his confident face, replying, "Yeah, it hurt, because I turned into a fucking demon. That happens when you flat from heaven, Lance!"

Lance blinks, taken aback.

Pidge smiles, pushing up her glasses, fallen in her many attempts to hide her face.

"Pidgeon is an anime character, Pidgeon is an anime character-"

"My boobs aren't big enough to be a part of the anime _you_ watch," Pidge answers, nonchalantly sipping her coffee right after. Lance sputters, flaring red in the face. That boy should really stop choking, Pidge thinks.

"I-uh-n-"

"Mmhmm," Pidge gives him her best deadpan.

"Well, Pidgeon, I guess I'll just have to see how long it'll be before you crack under my charms," Lance flashes her a smile of blinding teeth, inching closer to her. Pidge matches him, moving in, nose centimeters apart and lips curled in a devious smirk.

"You're on."


End file.
